


Auntie

by Zip001



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Motherhood, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 10:04:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8245217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zip001/pseuds/Zip001
Summary: Lya, the heir of the Seven Kingdoms, and her two younger siblings love their aunt Sansa.





	

"How did it begin? Oh, yes, it was a dark and dreary night. Not a creature was stirring not even a young mischievous dragon. No, no, no, that is not quite right," Sansa laughed as she tickled her nieces who were rolling around laughing and gurgling. Lya, the eldest, was upside down with her head at the foot of the giant bed they shared with their aunt. Vysena firmly held onto the back of her favorite aunt, with her tiny legs grabbing her aunt's waist. And little Rhae, the ray of sunshine, was kicking up her tiny heels with one tiny fist in her mouth.

Normally their father and mother made them sleep much earlier but whenever Aunt Sansa visited, there were well concessions so to speak. Lya saw her parents, King Jon and Queen Danaerys, sitting in the comfortable divan and laughing at the antics of their girls, of which Lady Sansa was the biggest. All the trappings of royalty seem to disappear whenever her parents were with Sansa. They all loved her clever and silly stories and her happy songs.

With a wink, Sansa gently extracted Vysena from her body, stood up and began to sing and dance a song of a maiden fair and a bear. She changed the lyrics so that it was about the battle of wit between Father, the prettiest man, and the fierce Bear, Lady Lyanna Mormont. They all laughed at Sansa's impressions of pouting and stuttering Father, even Mother who could not suppress a giggle when the Bear sat on Father at the end. When the song ended, she dramatically curtseyed low and blew kisses at them all and bounded out of their room with pirouettes and gazelle-like leaps.

Later that moonlit night, Lya awoke with a start. She looked out the large window and saw a flash of red and white outside, followed by a man. The man caught the woman in an embrace, and they were whispering. There was something so familiar about them. She heard clearly the woman saying "it hurts too much." It was her aunt.

Mother always said Lya's blue eyes, like that of Sansa's, saw too much and always admonished her eldest to not be so nosy. But she could not help but see, see that behind the show of frivolity and cheer that her aunt was hurting. And her auburn haired sisters sensed it too, as they always nestled against Sansa, trying to comfort her. Instead of lessening the pain, it felt like their kisses and hugs hurt her. Yet Sansa never shied from their many acts of affection although her visits have lessened not only in duration, at first months, then several weeks to now only a few days, but also frequency, before only a few months between and now almost half a year since the last time she visited. The more she and her sisters clung to Sansa, the more she felt that it could be the last time they saw her. One time she awoke to her aunt holding her and whispering of her love. Lya pretended to sleep as her aunt pretended that she did not know that Lya was not awake, telling her silly stories of children who lie and ended up covered in sticky honey. Her silly aunt pretended to lick her face. She loved Aunt Sansa so much.

Lya snuck out through the window and climbed down. She got closer to the two figures who were looking out at the bay with the man still holding Sansa in his arms. 

"Please do not go. The girls need you - they love you. I need you... I love you."

 _It was Father!_ Lya watched as Father slowly kissed Sansa on the lips, as she clung to him. She was crying. _Was Father hurting Sansa?_

"I still see them - Father, Jory, Jeyne, Septa Mordane... Why am I here when they are all gone?"

"You are here because you are a survivor, so strong. You don't have to be here - you and the girls can live at Dragonstone."

"But Dany..."

"She will understand. I want you and the girls to be safe. Lord Stannis will keep you safe, and I will stay with you and the girls for half the year."

"If I were Dany, I would not understand. You ask too much of her. And what of Stannis, we cannot impose on his hospitality. That is his keep - I am neither kin nor a child anymore. People will talk."

"She asked too much of us. And Stannis lives because we allow it. He was an enemy of Robb. No one would talk - look at him. There would be more talk if you lived with Grey Worm or Varys than him."

"This is not you, not the man who was raised by Father. You should not treat them so cavalierly or dismissively. I cannot stay here, nor Dragonstone." Aunt Sansa was crying again.

"Nor Winterfell?" asked Father.

"Nay, I love you, the girls and Rickon."

"But you do not love us enough." Father was bitter.

"I love too much and I probably should not." 

She tried to leave but he would not let her go. Sansa struggled against him. And Lya ran towards them, pummeling Father with her tiny fists.

Father and Sansa stopped struggling. Lya hugged Aunt Sansa.

"You don't want Sansa to stay?" Father asked in shock.

"I don't want Aunt Sansa to be hurt. You are hurting her."

Although she was no longer little anymore (she was three and ten years old), Sansa carried her back to her room and slept with her. Lya tried to fight sleep because she worried that once she fell asleep, Aunt Sansa would disappear forever. She did not want her to go.

But she was wrong - she awoke with Sansa in her bed and her younger sisters jumping on them both. Aunt Sansa remained in their lives, a pillar of light she leaned on. Instead of her visiting her favorite nieces in King's Landing, they stayed with Aunt Sansa in Maidenpool for three months in a year. Father often accompanied them; and there Father and Aunt Sansa did not hide their love. Everyone knew that Aunt Sansa was their biological mother, but Aunt Sansa made sure to remind them all that Dany was their mother. 

Aunt Sansa did not lie but she did not tell the whole truth either. Lya knew, and in her earliest recollections of her, that Sansa was also her mother. Finally, Sansa told her of her story, piece by piece, of how it all began when she was three and ten years old when the Royal family visited her childhood home.

So when Lya was married in the Godswood, Aunt Sansa was the one who walked her to the Godswood and presented her to her groom.

"Who comes to give the bride?"

"It is I, Lady Sansa of House Stark, kin to my beloved Princess Lya of House Targaryen."

"And of House Stark," Lya loudly and proudly pronounced.

"And of House Stark," whispered Aunt Sansa as she kissed her on her cheek.


End file.
